


Climb Down

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, Director!phil, Getting Together, Introspection, M/M, Songfic, Strangers to Lovers, YouTube Conventions, alternative universe, alternative universe - youtubers, fairytales - Freeform, musician!Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 03:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18307346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Dan is three stories up while Phil is below, shouting to each other across the distance. He feels likes he is trapped up here in his tower, waiting for someone to rescue him, perhaps.





	Climb Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Phandomficfests song fest, for the song Rebel Prince by Rufus Wainwright 
> 
> Thank you to @intoapuddle for the beta work, and the absolutely cracking job of cheering me through writing this when I didn't think I could finish
> 
> And a special shoutout to Rachel for her Swirly Whirl - Credit where credit is due, that piece of dialogue was all you!

The air is still humid at night in Jamaica, but out here on the balcony is at least less stuffy than his room. The light around the hotel pool glimmers up at him, turquoise and flickering against the white walls of the hotel and the brown tiles, reflections dancing. The water ripples in a slight breeze and Dan can hear the far-off sound of the hotel bar, laughing voices of what he knows is a large collection of YouTubers enjoying the evening. 

He isn't joining them. He didn't join them last night either, or the one before when the event opened. He's barely interacted at all, nor gone to half the panels and workshops he wanted to, but it's one of those days. It's been a few of those days. 

He can't work the air conditioning in his room, but the bright sun is too much for his tired eyes and the pounding in his temples. So he's spent his days in his room, curtains drawn against the heat, shaded and secluded. 

Two more nights here, he reminds himself. One performance on the Main Stage for the celebration closing the event, which he'll get through because it's just him and his piano like always. He can do that at least. 

Below him, from the shimmering poolside, voices float up to him on the humid breeze. He leans over in the white plastic chair in which he's sat, just far enough to glimpse two men with their arms around each other's shoulders, winding their way through the gap between this block of rooms and the next. They're clearly drunk, their voices loud and joyful, bodies swaying slightly in a way that makes Dan hold his breath for fear that they will fall in the water. 

Dan continues leaning, lifting the back legs of his chair off the ground to get a better view. They're both tall, dark haired, one slightly more stylish than the other. He recognises them, because of course he does. Phil Lester and Jimmy Hill. 

They don't know him, they run in different circles. Jimmy is a lifestyle vlogger, a comedian of sorts, and Phil is a short film maker. He wrote and directed a web series last year that Dan had enjoyed quite a bit, but neither of them would have any reason to interact with a relatively minor YouTube musician who only got a deal for his first EP this year. 

Dan thinks he read somewhere that they live together. He's not sure if that means that they _live together_ or not, but if he's learned anything from his years on YouTube and at events like this one, it's that you don't ask. Plausible deniability is your only friend. And if you do find something out you aren't supposed to, you keep your damn mouth shut, unless you want to be shunned by the entire community. 

Not that Dan interacts much with the community anyway. 

He leans just a little bit more, tracking their movements around the pool as they head to a block on the other side. Phil sways, his head dropping so that his hair flops down onto his forehead, glowing blue-black under the luminous light of the pool and Jimmy, Dan realises, is propping him up. 

Maybe Phil is the drunk one, which doesn't fit with the image Dan has of him. Phil hasn't appeared on camera himself in ages other than the odd cameo. His channel is mostly short films and sketches starring other people these days, ones he's written and directed. They're funny, sometimes touching. 

But Dan still has this idea about who he is, pieced together from snippets and the general feeling of his films. And being drunk to the point of needing assistance, dangerously close to the edge of a swimming pool, doesn't seem like his style. 

All of a sudden, the legs of Dan's chair go out from under him and he's pitched forward onto the floor. He can't help the cry of surprise that escapes him, a little louder as he hits the floor, and Jimmy and Phil turn at the noise. 

"What was that?" Phil says, his voice loud in a way that suggests he isn't aware of it.

Dan contemplates remaining on the floor until they've gone, but something about staying down there on the tiles, still sun-warmed from a hot day, makes him feel pathetic. So he gathers himself together, bruised and embarrassed, and pops his head back over the balcony wall with an awkward wave. 

"Sorry," he says, "I… fell."

"AH…" Phil slurs, throwing his arms open wide, an elated and over enthusiastic smile on his face. "Rapunzel. Look Jimmy, it's Rapunzel."

Jimmy clamps a hand down on his shoulder and Dan can't help but laugh. 

"Sorry about him," Jimmy says, "can't handle his rum punch."

"It was fruity, Rapunzel," Phil tells him.

Dan looks at their positions, and he can see where Phil got the comparison to the fairytale. Dan is three stories up while Phil is below, shouting to each other across the distance. He feels likes he is trapped up here in his tower, waiting for someone to rescue him, perhaps. It sounds kind of nice, fanciful and romantic, but the reality is that Dan is trapped here by no one but himself, and he isn't about to be rescued from the war raging inside his own head by two drunken YouTubers yelling up at him.

He'd be worried about the neighbours, given the noise, except that it's only eleven o'clock and this is a resort filled with mostly YouTubers, most of which are still at the party Phil and Jimmy are heading back from and that Dan hadn't attended at all. 

"Oh," is all Dan can think to reply. 

"Rapunzel," Phil says, "are you going to let down your hair?" 

Jimmy rolls his eyes, Dan can see that much from here, and clamps Phil's other shoulder in his opposite hand, pulling him away. 

"That's enough," Jimmy says, "to bed with you."

Phil looks over at Jimmy, as if confused by who he is and why he is there for a second, before nodding. 

"Bye Rapunzel," Phil says, turning his wavering gaze back to Dan for a second, "I'm going to bed now. Sweet dreams." 

"Yeah," Jimmy says, a sigh escaping him, "Night." 

Dan gives them another wave as Phil starts moving his feet without too much coercion, but still a little propping up from Jimmy. 

"Night Jimmy, Night Phil."

It takes another hour, until Dan is in bed with the balcony door cracked open to let the night breeze drift in through the mosquito net, for him to realise he'd said goodbye to them by name, and they had no idea who he was at all.

* * *

Dan would usually order room service for breakfast. Or at least lunch, depending on what time it is when he opens his eyes, but he wakes up hungrier than he has been in days and doesn't want to be judged for the amount of food he's going to put away, so the all-you-can-eat buffet is the only way to go. 

He leaves it until near the end of the breakfast shift, in the hopes that most people will have eaten and gone and his trip to the dining room won't turn into too much socialising. 

It mostly works. He's stopped by another musician on the way in who wants to congratulate him on the EP and tell him how much she likes it, which is always nice, but he's awkward all the same. He doesn't know how to deal with the little bit of fame it's brought him. His subscriber number rocketed in what felt like a few days, and his EP has sold quite well, ending up on an iTunes chart if not a regular one, and there is talk at the label of letting him make another one sooner than he'd thought. If that goes well too it could mean a full album. And then? Well, then who knows.

Maybe it won't be just YouTube anymore. 

He makes a beeline for the cereal and sits at a table by himself, eating his way through the bowl of something crunchy - he isn't sure what brand - in the most ungraceful way possible. They're dispensed from glass containers with a little scoop so he doesn't have the boxes to go off and they have different brands over here. Whatever it is, it's nice, and he would eat another bowl straight after it to make up for the past few days where he hasn't really eaten, but there are gleaming silver trays along one wall giving off scents that make him feel glad he'd decided veganism wasn't happening on this trip. 

When he gets home, maybe, but right now the bacon is calling to him. 

Once he's actually across the room, the bacon is mostly forgotten. On the end of the row of warm silver trays is a small serving station with a sign reading 'Pancakes'. His stomach, although occupied by a bowl of cereal, rumbles at the thought. 

There isn't anyone on it at the moment so he feel like a bit of a spare part, plate in hand, standing in front of it. He's just beginning to think that maybe they aren't serving pancakes today, and that it had been a cruel cruel trick to leave the isng out when a helpful member of staff tells him that the chef has just gone to fetch more batter and will be back shortly. 

"Do they not have pancakes?" says a tired voice from behind him, and Dan spins around to see Phil Lester. 

His hair is a state, he's wearing glasses and there are purple-blue rings under his eyes that tell tales of how little sleep he must have gotten. 

"Oh God," Phil says, when he sees Dan. 

"Good morning to you too."

"No, sorry. I mean, good morning. Ugh, I just—" Phil sighs, long and loud, dropping his forehead onto the palm of his hand not carrying a plate. 

"You okay there mate?" Dan says. 

Phil lifts his head and blinks. His hair is even more of a mess now, stuck at an angle with what is probably yesterday's product. "I'm sorry," he says, sincerely, "seeing you made me remember how much of an idiot I was last night."

Dan smiles, a soft chuckle escaping him that he didn't intend to make. "No worries."

"I don't usually drink. I don't usually… do any of that." Phil shakes his head, a far off look appearing in his eyes for a split second before it's gone. "I'm sure Jimmy will never let me live it down." 

"He didn't let you get into too much trouble I don't think," Dan says, "so you're probably safe from the worst of it." 

"Oh good," Phil says sarcastically, "no physical injuries, just the deep unending anxiety of knowing I embarrassed myself in front of the entire hotel. Great."

"Don't worry, I don't think anyone else was around," Dan says, "They were all at the party."

Phil nods, then cocks his head and regards Dan with tired eyes and pink cheeks. "You weren't at the party?"

"Oh uh, no." Dan says. "I, um, I have a performance tonight and I don't like to stay up too late. Gotta be, you know, fresh."

His voice sounds fake to his own ears, but Phil seems to swallow it. It's as good a reason as any, a finicky artist needing specific circumstances in order to create. At least, it's better than the truth. 

"So," Phil says, after a second's pause, "no pancakes?" 

"I think they're coming back in the minute," Dan says. 

"Oh thank god. I cannot deal with a hangover and eternal shame without pancakes." 

"No?"

"Definitely not. But then, I sort of feel like all of life's events should be deal with in a pancakey fashion."

Dan can't help but laugh. It's a little jarring, because it's exactly the kind of humour that comes through in his work, slightly odd yet endearing, and yet here Phil is, tired beyond all belief, and still just as cute and quirky. 

Dan isn't tasked with finding something to say because a woman returns to the pancake stand in a white chef's hat and a loud voice. She takes Dan's order and makes him a short stack of pancakes with a touch too much small talk for Dan's tastes, and he leave Phil to make his own order and goes back to his table in peace. Not before stopping for a side of bacon after all. 

He's most of the way through his first pancake when he spots Phil again, standing at the edge of the seating looking confused. He's nearby to Dan's table, so he can hear Dan perfectly when he finds himself calling out to him. 

"You okay?"

He wants the words to jump back in. He should leave Phil to his breakfast, and he should eat his own, but there's something about they way Phil is standing there that makes him think he needs help. 

"Yeah I—" Phil bites his bottom lip and scrunches up his nose. 

Dan waits, letting Phil work through whatever his hesitation is. 

"I'm so tired. I forgot which table was mine. You think they'll mind if I just walk this plate up to my room?"

"Er, I guess?" Dan says, "Or you could just... sit with me?"

What the hell is wrong with him this morning? He's felt squirrelly since he woke up, hungry and agitated, like he has a bit too much energy, but none of that means he wants to actively seek out company. Yet, he feels nothing but good about inviting Phil to his table. 

"Really?" Phil says, pulling the seat out and sitting down before Dan has a chance to tell him that it's really okay. "Thank god. I thought I was going to have to stand there all day."

Dan loses his nerve when Phil actually sits down. He finds that he can't really say anything and ducks his head to concentrate on his breakfast. Until, that is, he catches sight of the masterpiece Phil has created on his plate. 

"What?" Phil says, when he catches him looking.

"Sorry," Dan laughs, "but that looks like you're asking for high blood sugar." 

Phil looks down at his plate, piled high with pancakes, whipped cream, strawberries, chocolate sauce, and a sprinkling of hundred and thousands. Dan doesn't even know where he found those. 

"Leave me alone, I'm not well."

"You're hungover," Dan counters, "completely self inflicted, I have no sympathy."

Phil pouts, the plump pink of his lips looks lush, biteable, and Dan has to divert his gaze back to his own plate lest he stare too long. 

It's been a long time since he got laid, and he hasn't even had the energy in the past few days to take care of anything himself. It's a good sign though, he thinks, it's usually one of the last things to come back when he's been in the fog for a while. 

"Are you going to workshops after this?" Phil asks after a moment of sulking. 

Dan stabs his fork into a piece of pancake and holds it up, peering at it intently as if it holds the answer.

"Dan?" Phil prompts, "did you hear me? I asked if you were—" 

"I'm not." 

Phil blinks at his interrupted, the forceful way his voice had been pitched, as if in no way did he wants Phil to ask him why. He doesn't want him to, he doesn't want to be talking to Phil at all. He wants to be alone, doesn't he?

"Ok," Phil says quietly. 

There is even more awkward silence then. Dan is contemplating leaving his breakfast, making an excuse, and going back to his room. He's not as bad as he has been, but the urge to crawl under his duvet, to shut the curtains on the bright sun streaming in through the windows, even in the dining room, is strong. 

"I'm sorry," Phil says. "I didn't mean to make you mad. I was only asking because… well, I'm not going to go. I can't face it." 

"Oh."

"Yeah. I have to go to the performance tonight because I have a slot on the lineup to moderate a section, but I don't think I want to do the whole workshop thing. I just…" 

"You're hungover," Dan says. 

Phil swirls some deflated whipped cream around with his fork, pushing a piece of pancake into the foamy pool of it, soaking it up. "Yeah," he says.

"So what are you going to do?" Dan asks. 

"Honestly?" Phil says. "Probably just buy a load of snacks we don't have in England and go back to my room." 

"Sounds like a good plan," Dan says, "if you can stomach snacks after that lot." 

Phil smiles at him, and Dan feels something akin to relief flood through him. 

"I can handle my sugar," Phil says. 

"Just not your rum."

"Be nice to me," Phil says, "I'm—"

"Hungover," Dan says, cutting him off, "and I've no sympathy. We've been over this."

Phil rolls his eyes, slumping in his chair a bit. "It would be the perfect plan," he says, "except I didn't bring my Switch."

"Too bad mate," Dan says, knowing from his own experience over the last couple of days how much that would have indeed improved things.

"Unless…" and here Phil trails off. 

"Unless what?" 

"Well, since neither of us have anything to do, did you want to hang out?" 

"Oh, um…" 

"No worries if not," Phil adds, hurriedly, "it was just an idea."

"No, er," Dan is playing for time, because for some unexplainable reason he wants to say yes. He wants to hang out with Phil Lester and see more of that quirky humour in real life. It's awkward as all hell, and he keeps tripping over their conversation, but he likes it. Somehow. "I… We can hang out."

"Great," Phil says, "I have the perfect place to go."

* * *

Dan stands in the doorway with a bag of unfamiliar snacks swinging in his hand, and stares incredulously at the scene before him. 

"Really?" he says, "this is what we're doing?" 

"Yeah," Phil says, "why not?"

Dan puts the carrier bag down on a ancient padded chair and heads towards the table in the centre of the room. "I don't think I've played air hockey in years." 

"Well then Danny boy, I'm about to whip your ass." 

Dan pulls a face and Phil goes appropriately pink at the top of his cheeks. Dan wants to tell him that he hates the name Danny, that he won't ever let anyone call him that. A girl had tried it once when he was a teenager, and many many men have tried it after, trying to fit him into some infantalised twink fantasy they had, but from Phil it doesn't sound like that. It sounds the same as anything else he says, weird and odd, and like it shouldn't really work, but it does.

Dan picks up the circular pusher with it's domed handle and inspects it, "aren't kids supposed to be using this room?" 

Phil looks around the small games room. Other than the air hockey table there is a pile of board games with ripped edges, a beanbag facing the oldest television Dan has ever seen, and an oversized chess board propped up against the far wall.

"There are no kids," Phil shrugs. "The hotel is booked out for the convention and everyone is actually attending workshops and panels today." 

"So it's just us?" Dan says. 

"Yeah," Phil says. "I guess it's just us."

* * *

Three games and all the snacks later and Phil is slouched in the bean bag chair. Dan is sat on the floor, lounging against the wall next to the television, legs outstretched so that they're nearly touching Phil's shoes. 

Dan's chest hurts from laughing. Phil's banter in gameplay is something to behold and he's doubled over at multiple times, watching Phil's face go red at an unintended pun. Phil's sitting with his knees bent, feet planted on the floor with his knees spread, looking at Dan through the gap between them. Dan is mid-laugh when he realises he's staring, and that Phil is staring back. 

"I've been meaning to say," Phil says, a Twizzler in his hand, waving back and forth.

Dan is shocked at the amount of sugar he's been putting away, but then Dan's finished off a sharing bag of Sour Cream & Onion Lays to himself so he can't really talk. 

"Hm?"

"That I really enjoy your music." 

"Oh," Dan feels hot all of a sudden. Aware of all his limbs in a way he hadn't been previously. He taps his fingers against the floor in an uneven rhythm and tries to keep eye contact as he says, "Thank you." 

"Your videos too," Phil continues, "but I have the album on iTunes. I like the instrumental ones." 

"Yeah," Dan says, shaking his head. "The video stuff isn't my strong point." 

"Well," Phil shrugs, "it's not like I could write a song if asked. I had to include a song in something I was working on last year and I had to call someone in. I had no idea what I was doing." 

"For the series, right?" Dan says, "you had that musical number in the final episode. It was really funny!" 

"You've seen my series?" Phil says, sounding genuinely shocked. 

"Yes," Dan admits, still feeling hot, "I… yes."

"Wow, I can't believe this. I didn't think… you don't seem to interact much I suppose I just thought—" Phil's eyes dart away to a spot a few feet to the right of Dan's shoulder. "I really like your music, I can't believe someone who writes something that beautiful could enjoy my silly stuff." 

"Silly?" Dan says, "Your stuff is comedy but it isn't silly. You cover some pretty topical stuff a lot of the time, and it means something to people. It makes people happy, all my music does is make people sad." 

"No," Phil says, drawing it out and looking back to Dan with a defiant expression, "your music isn't sad, it's hopeful!"

It's the first time anyone has described it like that. His usual demographic is depressed queer teens, outsiders who bring their pride flags to his gigs and wave them high in the air, singing their hearts into every word of Dan's lyrics like he's speaking directly to them. Hopeful? Dan hadn't thought of it like that before. He'd just been sharing his own turmoil, the constant storm in his head day after day. 

"You make people think they aren't alone," Phil says. 

"Oh god," Dan says, "Stop." 

"You're right," Phil says, "Let's just say we both enjoy each other's work and not get stuck in a swirly whirl of compliments." 

"A swirly whirl?" Dan says. 

"Yeah, you know, where you say you like my stuff and I say I like yours and it just goes round and round in a swirly whirl." 

Dan laughs. It comes up from his belly and shakes his shoulder with the force of it. "Oh… oh god."

"What?"

"A swirly whirl? Phil you are the most precious person I have ever met. A circle. You mean a circle." 

"I'm tired," Phil insists, "Hungover, remember? I forgot the word for circle."

Phil's cheeks go pink again and Dan thinks it might be one of the best things he's ever seen. He likes making Phil blush, the pink against the pale of the rest of his skin, contrasting with the blue of his eyes, the black rims of his glasses and the glint of his hair. 

"You're adorable," Dan says, not meaning to do it out loud.

Phil's eyes meet his and the laugh gets caught in his throat. It suddenly makes no sense at all that Phil is over there and Dan is over here. It makes no sense that he hasn't crawled over to him, slipped into the gap between his knees and leans down close. 

So he does just that.

"Is this okay?" Dan says, quiet and low.

Phil nods, bringing his hands up to skim Dan's hip, fingers splayed. His breath is warm on Dan's cheek, smelling of twizzlers and sugar. 

"Why didn't you really want to go to the convention today?" Phil asks, hips shifting so that Dan can feel the effect of their proximity. 

"I…" 

With Phil up this close he can't think. He wants to act, to hide his face in the act of kissing Phil and not have to deal with the difficult question of why he wants to do that. Or why he wants to do anything. 

"When I asked if you were going to go, it wasn't because of this. This wasn't what I had in mind." 

"I know," Dan says, "me either."

He's sick of thinking. He's sick of going round and round in his head about what he intends and what he doesn't. He's had no energy to do anything for days, and still very little to do the things he's supposed to, but here with Phil, inches from his mouth, he feels like he could do anything. 

Phil gasps when Dan kisses him. Dan feels the air rush into his chest as it rises beneath Dan's over breastbone, warm and solid. The beanbag gives so that they fall sideways, but Phil's hands firm on his hips, one arm sliding around him to keep him steady, and he parts his lips to Dan's tongue with very little prompting. 

There is a wet, glorious sound as their lips part, breaths are taken, and they come back together again. Phil groans quietly in the back of his throat and Dan finds himself rolled onto the hard carpet, Phil rolling with him, settling on top of him and bringing their lips together again. 

It feel like forever. Hot and close and everything Dan wants it to be. He feels his mind go quiet, filled only with the feeling of Phil's hands in his hair, his lips working their way down his jaw and onto his neck. There is a soft scrape of teeth against his pulsepoint and Dan sighs. 

"Shit," he says. 

Phil lifts his head, "Too much?" 

"No, no not too much. It's okay. It's great," a delirious laugh bubbles up, and he squeezes his eyes shut, moisture gathering in the corners of them. It's stupid, and too much, but he can't stop. "I really… I needed this."

When Dan opens his eyes Phil is looking at him with a concerned expression. There is a furrow in his brow under the bridge of his glasses, and Dan wants to wipe it away, to pull him back closer. 

"What do you mean?" Phil says. 

"Nothing. I didn't mean anything, it's fine." 

"No," Phil says, "Go on." 

"I just meant that I've been having a shit time. It happens… sometimes. I have… bad days." 

Phil nods, like he understands, and Dan is grateful that he doesn't have to explained what he means. 

"It's been difficult, being here. With my own gigs it's like, just me, which is fine. But here… here I have to get on with everyone and be a _YouTuber_ \- whatever that means - and I just can't." It's pouring from him now, all of it. Everything that's been in his head for the last few days, for longer than that probably. Maybe for a lot longer. "I don't know how to be a YouTuber, not properly, not in the way that they expect. It's never enough, not any of it. Why can't I just play music and write songs and not have to do all of this stuff?"

"Dan…" 

"You called me Rapunzel last night," Dan says, and watches Phil's face twist with embarrassment. "No. It's fine, you did. But it's… that's just it. I feel like I've been trapped in a tower— in that room, for days. And now here you are. I can finally climb down." 

"Wow. I… give me a minute." 

Phil is moving away, getting to his knees and scooting back towards the bean bag again. 

"Phil?" Dan says, "It's fine. You don't need to say anything about it. Just… come back?" 

"I'm not going to come back over there," Phil says, a little sad, a little quiet. 

Dan's stomach sinks. He feels sick as he lifts himself up off the floor. He gets all the way to his feet and goes over to the carrier to fish through it for something else to eat, but everything looks unappealing and bland. 

"It's not that I… I want to," Phil says, "I really do. I just don't think it's what's best for you right now." 

"What's best for me? How the hell would you know what's best for me?" 

"I don't," Phil says, also getting to his feet. "Not really. We don't really know each other at all." 

Shame hits Dan like a train, in the center of his chest, knocking the wind from him. They don't know each other, not at all. And he'd gone on and on about the stuff in his head, letting it fall out of him like water through a sieve, and Phil didn't need to hear any of that. No wonder he's freaked out.

Phil backs up so that he's leading against one end of the air hockey table. If Dan didn't know any better, Phil would look relaxed, calm and collected. His hair is messy, but it has been all day, so there is little evidence that anything has transpired between them.

"I don't know you, but I do think I know what you mean," Phil says. 

"Look, it doesn't matter. Forget I said anything—" 

"The reason I didn't go today wasn't because I was hungover." 

Dan closes his mouth with a click of teeth and let's Phil continue. He isn't sure what this has to do with anything, but the expression Phil's face is one that Dan doesn't want to interrupt. 

"I ran into my ex at the party last night. He was… well. At one point I thought he was going to be the one to save me from all the shit in my head too." Phil crosses his arms over his chest, protecting himself from the thought of it, from Dan, he can't be sure. "Seeing him… it brought that all back. How painful it was when he left, because I thought that I needed him. He was the reason that I moved out of my parent's house, the reason that I stopped messing around on YouTube and started trying to do the writer/director thing seriously. I thought that he was the one that was going to fix all my problems, I thought I had to be with him or none of the rest of it worked. So when he left…" 

Dan wants to go over to him. He wants to smother the croak in his voice with his own body, to put his arms around Phil and make it all better. 

"I didn't go today because I know he's going to be there. And I didn't want to face him."

"It sounds like he want a—" 

"Don't," Phil says, cutting him off again. "Don't say that. He isn't anything, it wasn't his fault. I put him up on this pedestal and I made him into this… thing. He wasn't a person anymore, he was just the answer to everything that was wrong. That's a heck of alot of pressure to put on someone. To make them your knight in shining armour."

"I wasn't trying to do that, Phil."

"Not right now you weren't," Phil says. "Right now you're sad, or mixed up or something. I know you don't really think I can fix everything, or even the stuff you said I could. But at some point you would. At some point you'll made me the answer to all of your questions and resent me for never living up to it." 

Dan's teeth are biting ridges into his lower lip. His eyes string with the effort of holding something back, and his chest is tight with shame and regret. He doesn't know what to say. He wants to tell Phil he's wrong, that's it nothing like that. He'd just wanted to kiss him, that's all. 

But that isn't all it is. Dan is sad. He's deep down in the fog a lot of the time and Phil had seemed like a bright beacon signalling his way out in a weird t-shirt and messy hair. 

How long before that beacon becomes the only light he'll let himself see?

"Sorry," Dan whispers. "I'm— just, sorry." 

"Don't be," Phil says. "I don't want you to be sorry. Look, I know that we don't know each other, and I know that… well, I have no business giving you advice on your life. But you're… you're really great, Dan. You don't need anyone to save you, least of all me." 

"I do," Dan says, sniffing away some building emotion. "I need… I'm not okay."

Phil looks at him like he knows, like he understands. It feels big, to say that out loud. Not to write it in a song and bury it underneath a lyrics, or a line in a video, to actually _say_ it. He's not okay. 

Phil breathes deeply, for one, two, three full seconds of silence before he's crossing the distance between them and cupping a hand onto the bottom of Dan's jaw. 

"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry that someone can't be that for you. If it was possible, I'd… well. But you know, the prince didn't really save Rapunzel either. She cuts off her hair and climbs down by herself." 

"I'm pretty sure that isn't how the story ends," Dan says, shakily. 

"No?" 

"It's a Grimm story," he says, "they don't end happily." 

"Alright," Phil concedes, "but you can have a happy ending. Climb down, Dan."

Phil presses their mouths together one last time. It's soft, warm, mostly chaste except for the way Dan's heartbeat picks up in his chest and he feels like this is a turning point. Right here in this tiny games room. Or maybe it was on the balcony, waiting alone in a 2-bit hotel for some prince to come and save him. 

"I want to know you," Phil says as they part. 

Dan touches his forehead to Phil's and breathes him in. "I'm not sure I know myself." 

Phil nods, disrupting the places they are touching, sliding his hands away and putting space between them again. 

"Well, when you work it out, maybe we can…" he makes a funny hand gesture that Dan could interpret a number of ways, but he's pretty sure he knows what Phil means. 

"Yeah," he says. "Me too."

* * *

Dan is late. He leans on the buzzer with his elbow and waits for the click of the door to open and struggle to open it with his hands full. He shakes out his rained-on hair in the mirror of the lift on the way up and then doesn't bother knocking when he reaches the flat. 

"I know," he shouts in the direction of the kitchen, "I'm late. Therapy ran over, but only because we started late which is kind of my fault in the first place. But, good news, I checked, and she doesn't think my perpetual lateness is the result of any deep-seated issues or anything so we're all good." 

Phil is peering in a saucepan when Dan walks into the kitchen, a deep-set line in between his eyebrows. 

"What are you doing?" 

Phil looks up finally, as if only just realising he's there, even though he'd let him into the building not a few minutes ago. "I was cooking dinner," he says, "but it's… not good." 

Dan rolls his eyes, "Since when do you make dinner? Anyway. I brought pizza." 

Phil's eyes alight on the box in Dan's hands and descends on it, "I don't know what I did to deserve you but thanks you." 

Dan feels a swoop of affection as Phil flips the lid of the box open and stares at the contents like they're the most amazing thing he's ever seen. 

It's become a routine since they came back from Jamaica, and that was nearly a year ago. They hang out, they play games. They've even been to a local arcade in town to play a few rounds of air hockey just for old times sake. 

They don't talk about Jamaica, they don't talk about the fact that Dan started therapy soon after he got back and has been slowly coming to terms with the expectations he puts on things. How he keeps expecting the next thing and the next thing to give him his happy ending and then starts the cycle all over again with disappointment when it doesn't work. 

He's learning to make himself enough. 

Phil doesn't even wait to sit down properly, or get them plates, they just stand at the kitchen counter and share the entire pizza with greasy fingers. Dan lets Phil have the ones with the most toppings and Phil quietly hands over the ones with more cheese. It's a silent exchange, one that's happened time and time again, but Dan can see it for what it is. Something he wants to keep doing, forever. 

"You know," Dan says, "I'm a complete mess." 

"You want me to get you the kitchen roll?" Phil says, inspecting his final slice to see whether the cheese-to-topping ratio is low enough to eat. 

"No," Dan laughs, "I mean… in general. In my life." 

Phil looks up then, pizza halfway to his mouth and a bemused expression on his face. "You're only working this out now?" 

"Shut it," Dan says, swatting at him. "I'm trying to say something."

Phil takes a bit of his pizza and says "Well, spit it out," around the mouthful. 

Dan rolls his eyes, but he continues on anyway. Jamaica never really went away. The games room and the breakfast play over and over in his mind always, and it still feels like the turning point that it was. 

"I'm a mess. I'm probably always going to be a mess, I mean, at least a little bit. But it's not the kind of mess I can't deal with anymore." 

Phil swallows. Dan can tell he wants to say something, he's gotten really good at reading Phil over the last year, he's near-fluent in every expression on his face, but he can't let Phil interrupt him, he just need to press on. 

"This mess… I don't think it— I mean, I don't _want_ a happy ending anymore."

The room feels heavy. He can see the way Phil's shoulders drop, the way he crumples inward minutely, trying to hide it. 

"Right," Phil says, discarding what remains of the pizza back in the box and wiping his hands on the sides of his jeans. "Then, what do you want?" 

"I've spent a lot of time thinking about what you said. About how I need to save myself, to climb down from my tower and find an ending to my story that doesn't rely on someone else. And… you're wrong." 

"I—" 

"No, Phil. Please. Can I just—" Dan takes a deep breath, "I don't want to do any of those things, I don't want a happy ending because it means the story is over. It means there's and _ending_. I don't want it to end."

"Dan..." 

"I know me," Dan says, "I know who I am and who I am is a little bit of a mess. But I'm working on it, I'm going to keep working on it. And… I want you to know me too."

"Oh thank god," Phil says, the words in a rush, coming out on an exhale and he reaches across the space between them and tangles his fingers in the fabric of Dan's shirt. 

Dan trips over his own feet as Phil pulls him close, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters, because Phil is kissing him, soft lips still warm from the pizza, tasting like tomato sauce and spices and _Phil_. 

Dan's head swims. He's back in Jamaica, on a humid balcony, on a hard games room floor. He's at his piano on the final main stage looking across at Phil in the sings, singing along to his songs even though he'd said he only liked the instrumental ones. 

But he's also ten years from now, twenty. He's lingering the past and glimpsing the future all at once but most importantly he's right here, right now, and he's with Phil. 

"I know you," Phil says as they part. "I know you."

Dan smiles, weaves his fingers into the spaces between Phil's, and lets the moment sit for a while. 

"Climb down," Dan says. 

And they do.


End file.
